Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German) (26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a high ranking Nazi leader, and one of Adolf Hitler's closest men. He was the third man after Hermann Göring in the Third Reich from 1933 to 1941.[1]
Early Life Early Career and Nazi Career
Rudolf Hess was born in Alexandria, Egypt, but moved back to Germany in 1908. He joined the army in World War I and was a soldier from 1914 until 1918. In 1920 he joined the Nazi Party and in 1922 he also became a member of the SA. He flew to Scotland during World War II in 1941 with the intention of putting an end to the war but was arrested. After the war he was tried at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946 and sentenced to life imprisonment from 1946-1987. He died in the Allied Military Prison, Spandau, Berlin in 1987. Since 1966 he had been the only prisoner. His death was caused by a strangulation using an electrical cord; officials recorded it as a suicide.
Rudolf Hess Media
Hess (right) with his geopolitics professor, Karl Haushofer, c. 1920
Rudolf Hess (2nd from left, behind Heinrich Himmler) was an early supporter of the Nazi Party.
Hitler speaks at a party rally in Munich, 1925.
Vehicle standard for Hess while serving as Deputy Führer
Hess, Heinrich Himmler, Phillip Bouhler, Fritz Todt, Reinhard Heydrich, and others listening to Konrad Meyer at a Generalplan Ost exhibition, 20 March 1941
The wreckage of Hess's Messerschmitt Bf 110
Part of the fuselage of Hess's Bf 110. Imperial War Museum (2008)
Hess in his cell at Nuremberg, November 1945
Changing of the guard at Spandau Prison, mid-1980s
References
- ↑ "Biography of Rudolf Heß". historyplace. Archived from the original on 2009-10-16. Retrieved 1 November 2009.